Panelists will discuss a wide range of topics, including the costs and benefits of high-frequency trading, sponsored access, and dark pools (private exchanges or forums for trading securities); the effect that current market fragmentation has on investors; and the proper regulatory responses to the challenges presented by the current market structure.

“The equity markets have been fragile and volatile in recent years,” said UVA Law professor Andrew Vollmer, director of the John W. Glynn, Jr. Law & Business Program. “Computers and high-speed dominate trading in the stock exchanges and alternative trading systems. The exchanges have seen market disruptions, and charges of unfairness have been leveled at high-frequency traders and dark pools.”

The symposium will hold a keynote Q&A with Stephen Luparello, director of the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets, and Robert Colby, the chief legal officer of FINRA, at noon.

Along with the keynote Q&A, the symposium will host four panels with opening remarks from Dean Paul G. Mahoney and Shannon Rice, editor-in-chief of the Virginia Business & Law Review. Vollmer will moderate the final panel of the day, “Realistic Ways to Address Harms from the Current Equity Structure” at 1:15 p.m.

The Modern Structure of U.S. ​Securities Trading: High-Frequency Trading, Dark Pools, and Regulatory Concerns